Gambling man...

For IMLP, I've decided to deviate from my coaches taper plan. For the final 8 days, I've been working off intuition and past experience of knowing myself and my body.

Today for instance, with only 5 days to race day, I did a 2 hour long run and the day before that, I did a 3:30 bike.

Surprisingly, this morning was one of the first days I didn't do the Training Payne Shuffle down the stairs. I'm not sure why? Although, yesterday the only thing I did differently was take some flax seed oil. Maybe that helped.

The reason I ran long today was for the following reasons, I've cut out a couple of runs last week due to a sore hip and felt I needed to make them up, I want to remain acclimatized to warm weather, I needed to boost my mental confidence and most importantly, my body seems to get stronger when I push it more and taper less.

Even though it was 32 C, I had one of my fastest long runs in a long time. I even took my hilliest and toughest route. Within the first hour, I could feel my hip bothering me, although I wasn't going to stop for any reason. I had made that decision before I left the house. There was not going to be any "pick me up" phone calls to Alice if the hip started bothering me.

The hip got sorer as the run continued on, and as per plan, I didn't stop. By the time I got home I was dripping wet. It seems every run lately my shoes have been soaking wet from sweat and today was no different. I lost at least 10 lbs of water on the run. Even after drinking close to 3 litres of water post-run, I was still only 181 lbs. I started my day at 186 lbs and that was before breakfast, coffee and pre-run water.

I'm so glad I did this long run. My legs needed it. About 30 minutes after finishing, my legs stiffened up and I was no longer walking, I was shuffling and tired. I had to run some errands and by the end of the day, all the movement helped and they felt back to a semi-normal state.

My hip is still bothering me and is much worse. It's now very noticeable with a minor discomfort when I rest. Although, I don't regret doing the run, it can only help strengthen those muscles before the race and I think it was even more important to run for all the other reasons I mentioned.

The one thing I'm noticing, is losing weight is hard. I've been eating perfectly for the past two days and have put in decent training hours, only to lose 0.4 lbs. Gaining weight is so much easier, all I have to do is hang out with my friends Adolf Coors and Colonel Sanders. With all that said, my resting heart rate and body strength is better than it's been in a long time.

This morning, after 3 big cups of coffee and post eating, I got my resting heart rate down to 40 bpm as I was sitting on the couch and watching the Tour. Even during most of my recent training sessions, it's tough to get it up past 133 bpm. Except at the end of today's run, it shot into the upper 140's and lower 150's due to the heat and not drinking or eating anything the entire time.

I've started riding Reid's ass again. It's only been two days and he hasn't trained. He just sits in his lazy boy and plays video games. I told him, "you don't want to waste all your hard work and get out of shape again do you?"

He agreed and said he was going to start riding his bike for 30 minutes and run for 10 minutes without stopping, every day. I think he should run longer and do it every second day, but anything is better than nothing. To help keep him on track I'm going to bring an extra bike with me to IMLP so he can ride it while we're there.

On the beer front, I picked up my first keg and it's in the fridge chilling. I'm waiting for the C02 tank to be filled and by Thursday I should have it ready so that when I get back I can pour myself a nice cold one.

I also found out my good buddy Rich Sohor decided to come with Davis for Ironman Syracuse. They're flying here from Winnipeg. I'm not sure if he was motivated by me telling him I got a Kegerator or that we are possibly going to get comped rooms at the Seneca casino the night after the race.

I do know for sure, it wasn't doing the race that motivated him to come. He's not yet sure if he's even going to do the race or just watch it. If he becomes "a watcher" I'll be so disappointed and unleash a can of "never ending teasing" for years to come. He'll have wished he did it, "pain is temporary, my teasing's forever".

Long Run - 2:00:06 / 23.98 km / 5:00 pace p/km

186.0